By Jack Wyman

The cool twilight breezes made their way gently through the rugged hillside.

It grew still. The men sitting there looked down.

Nobody said anything.

It had been another day of eager and curious crowds; demanding questions and puzzled faces - stressful, exhausting - and confusing.

Exciting to many, sort of like attending a performance, getting a glimpse of the latest celebrity.

He had remained supremely serene. His answers were never defensive; authoritative, but calmly so. He didn’t obfuscate, he didn’t equivocate, nor did he dodge.

Nearly every answer began with, “Verily, I say unto you.”

That’s the King James Version for, “I tell you the truth.”

Truth mattered to Jesus, and he told it - simply and directly.

Nobody gets any more categorical - there is no bolder claim in the history of religion - than declaring oneself the way, the truth, and the life. Meaning, there is no other truth, way or life. There is only one way to God, one way to heaven and eternal life.

Jesus says, “I’m it.”

Say what you will, think what you will, believe what you will, choose what you will. But you must choose. CS Lewis famously wrote that Jesus is either the God-Man or a madman.

Universalists dismissed it as hopelessly narrow-minded.

The people were, well, people. Some wanted food. Some wanted answers. Others demanded a miracle - a sign that would prove his claims. Which were outrageous enough to most.

“I am the bread of life.” “God the Father has given me the seal of His approval.” He spoke of coming down from heaven and raising people up in the last day. When asked for power to do God’s works, Jesus told them: “This is the only work God wants from you: believe in the one He has sent” (John 6:29).

“Anyone who eats this bread will live forever, and this bread, which I offer so the world may live, is My flesh.”

A soft murmur rippled through the crowd. Arguments broke out. What does this mean? “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? What’s He talking about? This is preposterous!”

Shoulders shrugged. Heads shook. It was all too much.

John writes that there was a major abandonment after this. Many followers deserted Him. They “walked no more with Him.” There was no strategic plan in place, no advance man, no marketing director. No advertising team. No consultants. There was Jesus and His message. He stayed on message, despite a variety of temptations and growing resistance.

He knew His closest disciples -The Twelve - were struggling with all this - His teachings, His hard sayings, His out-there claims; the response of those who wondered in amazement but often left in confusion.

Even the disciples questioned the meaning, the implications, their own part in all of it. What did this mean for them? What did He mean to them? How would their lives change? It was obvious they would.

He looked at them, sitting in pondering silence together.

“Are you going to leave?” He asked them.

Are you joining the skeptics? Are you calling it quits? Are you giving up? Is this too hard?

The crowds had dispersed, the objections had been voiced, the demands rejected. There would be no show. No tricks. No demonstration of strength just to entertain the audience. No seeking popularity or power or influence. No cover of TIME. No gracious invitations to dine with Caesar or Pilate, or even Herod. No religious advisory council. No interviews.

No overthrow of the corrupt and oppressive establishment. No political liberation. No crown, except the thorns forced upon His bleeding brow when - stripped, bloody and bruised - He would be nailed to a cross between two thieves, while the once-adoring crowd, now an angry mob, cried, “Crucify Him!”

That was the plan. That was the purpose. That was the meaning - the destiny of God when He came to earth. From that would come the future glory, the triumph, the eternal victory. From this ignominious public disgrace and tortuous death would be offered eternal life.

“Are you going to leave? You can, you know. I won’t try and stop you.”

There would come a time when they’d all leave Him - on that fateful night when terror would grip their hearts, the doors would be bolted and the cock would crow.

But not on this night.

Peter spoke. He spoke for them. He spoke for all believers for all time. He spoke for you and me, living in this daily caldron of despair and pain and suffering; division, hate and confusion; the unbelief and rampant sin we know as the twenty-first century.

“Then Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life’” (John 6:68).

There is no other. No other hope, no other way, no other truth, no other life. No other Savior but Jesus Christ the Lord. These men would go to their martyr deaths embracing with joy the only pure truth the world has ever known.

“We believe and we know…”

The cross was even then the emblem of discipleship and its costs. Jesus said no one could be His disciple without taking up His cross daily and following Him. The world has always had different ideas, never more so than now.

Jesus has always had just one - “follow Me.”

The path is narrow, not easy to find, but the reward, in the midst of it all, is well worth the effort, the sacrifice, and the denial of self.

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions,” wrote Henry David Thoreau, “perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

Jesus is our different drummer.

Our pace is in His steps, not the broad march of the world.

His music? It’s as near as your heart. Step to it.

“Follow me.”

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